Melting the Frost
by Offcentre
Summary: [Ch. 2 is up] Snape absolutely detests the new DADA teacher, Bedelia Flannigan. When certain secrets come to light, though, they may have to learn to work together after all...
1. Unpleasant Welcoming

**MELTING THE FROST**   
Chapter One: Unpleasant Welcoming 

All right, as promised, my first Harry Potter fic (about SnapeSpats, for certes!). I'm sure this storyline is fairly common but I've tried to take a fresh approach. It will be chaptered; this is only the very beginning. Thanks so much to **Honoria Glossop** for introducing me to this fandom and for being my beta reader and support staff! Now I'll shut up; you read and enjoy. ^^   
_Harry Potter_ is, of course, © J.K. Rowling and Scholastic Books.   
Rated PG for mild language. So far. ^^   
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He couldn't quite settle the twitch in his eye, nor relax the sneer on his face, as he lowered himself into that cushioned rolling chair in the desolate classroom. The stacks of boxes, steamer trunks, parcels towering over him all bore the same inscrutable lettering: "Extra Flasks", "History of Magic, Vols. I – VIII", "Herbs P – U"; it went on and on, all perfectly organised and marked and sorted to the point of nausea. Oh, yes, he could still see that glower in the Deputy Headmistress's face now: "If you don't care to assist us in the festivities, Professor, then perhaps you'd do best to make yourself useful by getting her classroom belongings in order." Humph, get her classroom in order, indeed—Miss Bedelia Flannigan was positively an orderly _freak_. 

But better for him to be here than the Welcoming Banquet. He couldn't bear to see yet another giddy new face rejoicing at their unknown triumph over him, once more, by snatching away the ever-abandoned Defence Against the Dark Arts post. And by that preposterous Irishwoman at that! At first sight of him, she looked as she'd rather spit on him than shake his hand. And then the _toads_—oh, Merlin, those toads… Falling out of her sleeves, leaping about his shoes, dashing into his cape… He cringed at the very remembrance of it. Disgusting creatures, almost as hideous as the woman herself. The only use toads served him were to be dismembered for his potions. 

He flicked a clump of inky hair from his eyes; let his spidery fingers crawl to the quill resting in its well on the desk. The feast wouldn't be over for hours, he knew, and he was in no rush to unpack for her. What, Potions Master wasn't lowly enough an assignment for him? He had to be a house-elf now? He had more important tasks for Dumbledore than assuring Miss Flannigan felt welcome. 

Snatching a sheet of fresh parchment from the top desk drawer (and pointedly _not_ looking at the letterhead reading "Bedelia Flannigan, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" at the top) he began to scratch ferociously at it, determined to eke a new verse out of himself before the evening was up. His newest concoction was hardly of worth to him, but was so potentially volatile it demanded only the trickiest of riddles. And he wrote: 

A pinch of one desire—   
though not the one I hold   
from root that fills your belly   
and may clog up your soul   
Then stirred (in timely fashion   
as no other way will do)   
Add a cup of _this_ powder   
that turns me into stew:   
(From a roaring beast that struts   
deep inside the sea   
I'd be a coward without unpowdered   
_this_ inside of me.)   
And now you think you're pretty quick   
But we're only half through.   
You've yet to learn the many things   
That this potion can do— 

With an irate wave the parchment disintegrated. _Total drivel_, he chastised himself. Who did he think he was, anyway, trying to cipher a riddle to make a potent new formula for Bottled-Up Passion? Sure, it caught students' attention for the first day of the new term, but he didn't know the first thing about passion—aside from passionate dislike, anyway. _Honestly._

Miss Bedelia Flannigan—he always heard the name inside his head in childish singsong tones—had certainly thought so, too. Upon shaking his hand, she just couldn't help but cry out at what an icy palm he had, and—now he was really seething as he recalled the incident—continued to make snappy remarks about him through their tour of the school. "This must be Severus's quarters," she had noted of the dungeons. "It seems the perfect frigid cavern for an overgrown bat." All the other teachers got a great kick out of that, all right. …Well. Come to think of it, he hadn't been the only one singled out by the smarmy redhead; McGonagall, Vector, and even Dumbledore had played brunt of her jokes during the tour, but her jabs at them held considerably more levity, as far as he was concerned. Though maybe he was taking it all a mite too personally. 

And quite abruptly he leapt three feet in the air as he was goosed by what might have been a Mackled Malaclaw for all the hurt it caused. 

"Poor ickle Snapey's sittin' round on his fat arse, broodin' again, I see! Let's see if I can cheer 'im up a bit, yeh bastard!" cackle the voice behind him. No need to turn around. 

"Sod off, Peeves." 

"Naughty, naughty! What vulgar words! Madam Pomfrey orter clean yer bloody mouth out!" The poltergeist whipped around to face him with the same dumb grin as ever perpetually haunting his face. 

Severus raised an unamused brow. "And here you are pestering the head of Slytherin. I'd hate to think what the Bloody Baron would think of that." The reaction was as hoped; Peeves became more transparent and did his absolute best to assume a reverent demeanor (which wasn't very good at all). "Maybe you'd have more fun at the banquet instead? Hurling food at the new Professor Flannigan sounds more to your liking." 

"Bollocks! Dumbledore'd spoil my fun; he always gets me back. I'd much rather be pissing you--" Peeves scowled once more at Snape's warning look. "That is, I think I'll go see if I can't kick Mrs. Norris round a bit." With that, the poltergeist flitted away. 

Severus scarcely believed Peeves would pass up a chance to rough up a banquet, Dumbledore or no; he must have taken a bruising from Flannigan himself. Now he didn't know whether to be impressed by the woman, or terrified of her. 

His gaze went, quite unwillingly, to the stacks of boxes and for a moment he considered doing as asked. (The urge passed.) No, he liked the way the piles blocked him inside the room: they served simultaneously as a reminder that the classroom was still not his, but a comforting barrier from those that would contest it. 

_Crrrrooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak._

His hand went to the wand tucked inside his cloak, but stopped there. Moving only his eyes, he surveyed the classroom, but his view was effectively barricaded by the columns of packing crates (some looking quite precarious in their leaning). No sign that Peeves had returned, or any of the other haunts, for that matter; at last he called, "Who's there?" 

And silence—for a moment. But then a scratching—no, not a scratching, but a flopping about, like a lame creature unable to pull itself to its feet, and slowly it crescendoed, but abruptly faded again. Then there must have been a breeze, for he could swear he saw one of the pillars of boxes swaying. 

Hunching his shoulders, he busied himself with a new poem for an anti-bedsores salve he'd conjured up in his head the previous night while falling asleep. But after a few lines, his mind strayed. 

When Dumbledore had told them that Miss Flannigan had been hired, Severus was very surprised to find that he seemed the only teacher who didn't recognize her name instantly. He later learned she had come to Hogwarts during his fifth year—_not the greatest time for me_, he thought ruefully—and that she had risen to be Head Girl of Ravenclaw. Ravenclaws hardly had a place in the DADA post. They needed one not only well-versed in the cunning of the Dark Arts, but one intimately familiar with the trappings of the path of Darkness itself, one who had learned how to escape those guiles, one with the pride to go on despite the Dark Mark forever etched into his arm— 

"Oh, hello, Professor Snape. I was going to fetch one of my books to show Minerva, but I see you haven't unpacked my belongings yet." 

He ceased to wax poetic and stood up briskly. Leaning back against the arched entrance to the classroom, one pointed boot propped upon the doorjamb, the folds of her prim emerald schoolteacher's skirt reaching just past sickly, knobby knees, was Bedelia Flannigan: the newest scar upon his tortured life. Her frightfully red curls were gathered in the back and tied with a deep green ribbon, and he somehow knew that she'd actually wasted the time to arrange it that way herself instead of using a Hair Charm. One of the infamous Celtic Mudbloods, he had no doubt. A nasty grin festered on her sallow face, and she began to stride around the columns with rehearsed precision as a toad remained perched on her shoulder. 

"I'm offended you don't care to join us this evening," she drawled from somewhere behind a stack of steamer trunks. "I never realized what great fun these feasts are without all the students 'round. Flitwick's a hoot once you get a bit of liquor into 'im, tain't he? We really are having a great time, and it's a shame you're choosing to miss out on it. I didn't expect to have such a blast as a teacher here! I mean, I thought we were supposed to be all uptight and stiff!" 

"The new term begins in less than a week," was all he said. 

As she returned to view she let out a disapproving sigh. "I don't intend to get too accustomed to it, Severus." He bristled at the use of his first name. "But I'm in the manner of thinking we should be enjoyin' the intimate atmosphere of the student-free school, y'know? No, I guess you wouldn't know anything about that. 'Course, you've been here a while, you know these teachers on a more peer-like basis than I do. I mean, some of 'em were here when I was learnin' the craft! It's just new to me, is all—" 

"What is it you were looking for?" he demanded. Incessant rambling—another trait topping his list of annoyances. 

She drew her freckled face back a bit; the goofy smile vanished. "Sorry. Just one of my books. It's probably right in here, I'm sure I stuck it under this category—Sorry." Bedelia went silent again. 

Severus stepped from behind the desk and, drawing his cloak around him tight, drummed his fingers upon his arms. "Why are you apologising?" Indolent Ravenclaws; never quite learned properly how to play at politics… 

"Do you care to help me, or do you intend to just flit about asking questions of me all day?" Those damned granny boots clicked impatiently on the stone floor. "Honestly, I've only been here a day and already you resent me—don't look at me like that, I know it as well as you do. Not too slow to make a judgment, are yeh?" 

He turned away from where she was hunched over a crate; the toad kept pawing backward to keep from slipping off her shoulder. "You may have been Head Girl in your day, but there's still much you have to learn about Hogwarts. Don't expect the title of Professor to suffice in preparing you." 

"Really. Minerva's told me all about yew." Upon snapping the lid back in place, she gathered her skirts and stood up. "Well, I've found me book. I'll be seeing yeh, Professor; sorry for the intrusion." When he turned back to face her, she tried to give a friendly smile and a wave, but they dissipated mid-air. "Right, then." She spun and trotted from the room. She must have been tipsy herself: she had acted far too acquiescent. 

Severus cringed as the heavy oak door thudded shut behind her; the chandelier rattled, and the stacks swayed. One crate in particular looked about ready to fall, he'd better scoot it back over— 

With the sickening splintering of wood, it impacted against the ground and shards flew everywhere, as did… toads? 

Thousands upon thousands of amphibians of all sizes and colours, presumably held under a Sleeping Charm until now, swarmed throughout the classroom, crawling over the desks, spilling onto the shelving, jumping with manic possession for the mere sake of jumping. Their incantations of ribbits and croaks resonated through the chamber in a chaotic chorus. They climbed up his cloak and his trouser legs, entangled their spindly legs in his hair, perched upon every plateau they could possibly find, shrieking all the while. They coated the room, the crates, the floor—the ceiling—and he just stood there amidst the fury feeling his rage grow and grow and grow. 

If there had been any doubts still loitering obliviously in Severus's mind, they had surely now been banished: he loathed Bedelia Flannigan with a passion that defied words. 

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Thanks for reading! 


	2. A Barbed Offer

**MELTING THE FROST   
Chapter Two: A Barbed Offer**

No notes from me this time--just read and enjoy, and _review_, telling me what you like and don't like!   
_Harry Potter_ and all related entities are © J.K. Rowling and Scholastic Books, Inc.   
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A week after Miss Flannigan's arrival and his incident with the toads, the return of students heralded the coming of fall. He watched the tiny lights bobbing in the distance of the lake's inky folds, like the leisurely gyrating of a raven's wings, with no great joy across his face. Candles hovered behind him and would occasionally drift closer like lost puppies, oblivious to his foul mood, and he'd have to reach behind himself to shoo them away, but otherwise he remained fixed before a wide hall window overlooking the bluff. Inside the carriages drawn not far away were some of the few people that he disliked more than Flannigan at the moment, everyone from Potter's celebrity son to Lucius's brat. The boys couldn't be more different, but Severus hated them equally; it pained him to have to put on an air of adoration and paternal concern for one, to preserve his delicate guise, but he more than made up for it with his constant torment of the other. 

"Professor Snape?" questioned the wisened voice behind him, softly; he suspected its owner was squeezing the last bit of kindness from her demeanor in preparation for the sternness she'd be showing for the school year. "You'd better get to the Great Hall. The students will be arriving in a few minutes, and as soon as I give the first years an introductory speech it'll be time for the Sorting Hat Ceremony." 

He nodded; pulled himself away from the glass with a final longing gaze to the dark of the night as if it were the only illumination. "All right, McGonagall. I was just making sure Potter and Weasley weren't executing another of their grandiose entrances, of which they are so fond." 

Her thin lips pressed into an amused smile, and he stalked away. McGonagall took some kind of twisted pride in those miscreants and was more than obliging when it came to bending the rules for them just because they were in her House. Never mind that they'd snuck out of their tower past curfew, exited the School despite strict orders to the contrary, disobeyed explicit regulations more times than he could count—oh, sure! They'd foiled Lord Voldemort here and there, but at what cost? Honestly, that woman needed to get her priorities straight. 

Some of the other teachers had already gathered at their table in anticipation of the new students' arrival; he was pleased to see that Flannigan was not among them. A few nodded respectfully to him as he eased himself into a chair between Professor Trelawney (who was studying wrinkles in the table runner with rapt horror) and an empty seat—McGonagall's, no doubt. Dumbledore arrived shortly after him, placing a stool with the Sorting Hat most ceremoniously in the centre of their elevated stage. Most of the assembled gave him a noble bow of their heads as he edged behind the faculty's dining table. 

Teachers trickled in one by one, and Snape was very satisfied indeed that there was no sign of Miss Flannigan (the thought of calling her Professor still made his skin prickle), even once the older students had rushed in and McGonagall paraded the First Years about to the Sorting Hat. He tried very hard to pay little attention to them as they gawked at the bewitched welkin draped upon the ceiling over their heads, at the rows and rows of older students, and the inevitable gasps, in turn, as they passed a particular Gryffindor—"It's Harry Potter!"—who would just give them a humble smile and gesture that they continue on. Instead of plugging his ears for the Sorting Hat's song like usual, he feigned interest when Trelawney tugged at his sleeve and pointed animatedly at a place where the thread had knotted. 

Thus began yet another insignificant year in his mundane routine, forever doomed to be Potions Master at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the most scenic view in the world to watch your whole life slide away. 

Thirty-five new Gryffindors—their banquet table was getting especially crowded this year: everyone wanted to be a Harry Potter, he guessed; the usual smattering of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, and a dismal clump of Slytherins, most who looked almost disappointed and would give dirty looks to the Sorting Hat as they yanked it off. He did his best to appear upset by this. Oh, surely he loved Slytherin as strongly as the day that old Sorting Hat placed him in it, but even he could not deny the disproportionate amount of followers of Dark it turned out, and each one was just another he'd be sent to tail, to spy upon, to befriend… Really, could there be a more taxing job than his? And they were getting worse, too—openly displaying their racist tendencies against the Muggle-born children, and showing no concern whatsoever for discretion. It was all he could do to keep up the ruse of undying admiration and blatant favouring to the pampered lot without losing his mind, really, seeing to it that they got away with such little effort when theirs was supposed to be the house of ambition. 

But then, that was his intent: to weaken them. 

Dumbledore began to make his announcements for the new term. "Our newest Defence of the Dark Arts teacher for this year" —he had to raise his voice to be heard over some snickers—"is Professor Flannigan, joining us from her expeditions in the Isles with the Ministry." He glanced to the empty seat beside Snape at the table and frowned. "I'm sure she will be joining us later. Moving on, then… I would like to remind all students that, as usual, the Dark Forest is strictly off-limits, as is this year the top floor of the Eastern Tower, and that this year we will be—" 

But no one found out what they would be doing this year, for Professor Flannigan chose that moment to come exploding from the enormous doors to the Great Hall. With a creaking that filled the chamber as the doors parted for her, she stamped angrily between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables and the toad on her shoulder shot dirty looks all around. She did not say a word before reaching the teacher's table, but her face contorted as she obviously fought back an outburst. 

"Forgive me, sir," she grunted in a low voice, which Severus had to strain to hear, "but someone decided it would be very humourous to set my toads loose in the hallway." Many teachers' accusing stares shot to the Gryffindor table where the Weasley twins, now in their final year, sat with doleful looks on their matching faces. 

Dumbledore waved her to the empty seat on Severus's left side, and there was no missing the curling of her lip at the sight of him, but she relented and plopped down beside him. "There may still be some loose down in your dungeons," she hissed as Dumbledore resumed his announcements. 

"I trust you'll see to their removal, then?" he glowered. "Of course, if you won't, then I'm always in need of a fresh supply of frog legs." 

Appalled by his innuendo, she spun away to greet McGonagall at her other side, and he sat back, feeling satisfied with himself. 

The announcements concluded, and their meals were conjured up and Severus had almost begun to enjoy himself, mostly for the silence on Flannigan's part, until Draco Malfoy deemed it necessary to sidle up to the teacher's table to chat. "You had a good holiday, Professor Snape, I'm sure?" he asked, restraining a broad smirk. 

Severus knew exactly what he meant; were Lucius and Narcissa really so dense as to tell the boy everything that went on? With an uneasy fidgeting of his hands beneath the banquet table, he put on his most sinister smirk and retained cool confidence above. Had to look like he _relished_ convening with that… filth—no single foul word could do their atrocities justice. 

"Most," he said, voice as slick as chilled satin. "You shall have to extend my gratitude again to your father for me." A sensation like his nausea being tightly spun into a ball within his stomach overcame him as images of the summer's "festivities" returned to him. Etched into his eyelids now were the scenes, and blinking did no good if he wanted to hide. 

Malfoy was satiated at that, and for a moment Severus hoped their conversation was over, but then they boy only leaned in closer, his juvenile eyes narrowing in an inexperienced replica of his father's. "He wishes me to personally relay a message to you." The amused blush playing around the boy's delicate face indicated he surely thought himself very sly; Severus could feel his dinner threatening to come up. "When can we speak about it…?" 

He quickly wiped his mouth with a napkin to conceal a grunt of disgust (and partly also because Trelawney had been eyeing the napkin for several minutes now, threatening to seize it from him if he didn't make use of it). "You may visit me in my office this evening. We'll talk then." 

Fortunately, Draco took it as the dismissal it was intended to be, and with a patronising bow, he whisked himself off to the Slytherin table. 

"Disgusting!" a voice squawked from his left. 

Only briefly startled, he spun to face an appalled Flannigan. "What is it, Professor?" 

"That—that—_boy_," she gasped, seemingly overtaken with shock. "I saw him bullying these poor little Hufflepuffs in the hall, and it was just disgusting!" She shook her head. "The names he called this one girl, I couldn't believe it… I had half a mind to dock twenty points from his House, if only I knew his name…" 

Severus scowled; if words like Mudblood were going to make her rankle, she was in for a most unpleasant surprise at Hogwarts. She called herself a Defence Against the Dark Arts professor—she'd never see half the wretched darkness he'd endured, and still had to suffer under from time to time. Instinctively, whilst clutching at his arms, he slid two fingers beneath the cuff of his left sleeve to rub at the Dark Mark he knew was still there, and would forever be. 

"And he's your House, isn't he?" she continued, with a new fierceness in her hot eyes. He tried to avoid her glare (matched by her toad's) by scraping at his food some more. "And you're all cuddly-wuddly with him, aren't ye, and think it's just fine and proper that you Slytherins go bullying round everyone else without a care, because—oh, you're the only _real_ wizards, you're the only ones with any real ambition or talent—" 

At that moment, Severus had an overwhelming urge to slap her for her pomp and naivete, or at very least wave his hands about with frustration, but seconds before Flannigan's speech had concluded Trelawney on his right deemed it appropriate to snap up his palm and begin tracing the wrinkles in it with a healthy chorus of "Oh, my!" and "Ah, I see…" so he settled for narrowing his eyes at her instead. "Only been here a week, Flannigan, and you think you've got it all sorted out; that it's as clean-cut as that." The freckles on her face seemed to stand up in defiance as she flushed with anger. "Don't meddle in affairs that don't explicitly concern you—or didn't Dumbledore inform you of that when you were hired?" 

He wrenched free from Trelawney's examination of his palm but Flannigan had already turned away to look at her half-eaten course, plaintive. "Wizards shouldn't talk to fellow wizards and witches like that, is all I'm sayin', and you shouldn't be encouraging it, neither." 

Surely he was exhausted; for once a skillful evasive retort didn't spring to mind. She saved him from silence, however, by adding, "An' your dark, secretive airs don't impress me much, either. That's the trouble with you Slytherins—you hold so much in, whether it's worth it or not, that it makes you so unbearably _boring_." 

Trelawney was apparently waiting for their argument to end so she could reveal a dismal future for him, but he didn't give her the opportunity; drawing his cloak around him he swept from the faculty table and never glanced back, through the corridors, down the stairwells, into the dungeons and straight to his office. A rubber frog had been deposited at his door (a start-of-term gift from the Weasley twins, no doubt; he made a mental note to take twenty points from Gryffindor) and he threw it at the opposing wall, which caused it to explode with blue-green sparks and a thick putrid smoke. After a few vain waves of his hand to clear the stench he gave up and ensconced himself in the office chair. 

What of this sudden temper of his? Even the likes of Potter and his entourage travelled a longer fuse to his nerves than this woman did, and it wasn't his nature at all to not have a disingenuous subterfuge to sticky questions about his practises. Maybe the constant rejection of appointment to _her_ post was eating away at him even more than he had acknowledged; he always had a deeply jealous instinct like that. Malfoy, too, reminding him of the Deatheater horrors of the summer were enough to shake the strongest, hollowest of men that way. And hollow he certainly was: just an inhuman husk to play a pawn for whatever side cared to push him more… 

Unsure how long he sat there brooding, staring morosely at a crack in the plaster of the suffocating office walls, he was jolted by a tentative knock at the door. "Who's there?" Not that he mattered—it was, doubtless, no one he cared to speak to. 

"Draco, sir." The Malfoy sneer was audible in the way he said the words. 

"Yes, come in. Lock the door behind you." The boy did as told, but had a way of carrying out orders so leisurely, as if they had been his idea in the first place. He remained standing at the far end of the narrow office from Severus, hands clasped in front of him, a surly look to his smooth, still boyish features. Severus once more felt revolted that Lucius would loop the young twit into these barbaric matters; revolted, but not surprised. "Be seated. Now you had a message for me?" 

Draco somehow managed to make a perfectly postured sitting resemble a careless sprawl. "Father first asked me to thank you for your assistance this summer–" inwardly, Severus blanched—"and added that, upon hearing about the newest appointment to the DADA position, he's curious to know why you'd been passed up for a newcomer to the teaching scene and would be very interested in taking to question the school governors." 

Now Snape's stomach was rolling. Only Lucius could, in one sentence, dredge up a most nightmarish reminder of works for the Dark Lord that—in name, at least—he still served, and follow it with a vague promise at Severus's greatest dream. But even Malfoy's conniving brain, twisted though it was, could not realise the irony of the situation he'd just placed Severus in. To ensure Lucius would follow through with his "request" of the governors, he would have to endure so many more slaughters like the last, to keep up Lucius's good favour. Dumbledore had been distraught enough by his most recent reports; he wasn't sure he could bear much more chaos… But then, Flannigan stood to be perhaps the easiest of all the recent string of DADA teachers to pick off, with maybe the exception of Lockhart, and surely it couldn't take too much pressing for Lucius's suggestion to work… 

Severus only cradled his chin in thought and dared not meet eyes with Draco as he debated. "Tell your father I appreciate his offer, then, and shall consider it. Is that all, Malfoy?" 

Then came an unusual sight: that haughty face became troubled and conflicted. "Well," he began, drawling. "I just… wondered if maybe you could tell me… what it's like, you know. Father doesn't like to tell me much, especially when Mother's around, but he said maybe I could go with them in a year or two…" 

It took effort to not let his jaw drop. Here was Malfoy's son, afraid; he didn't know what to expect. For a minute, he could almost empathise—the promises of power were always so much fuller than when they were fulfilled. 

"You should be in the Slytherin Tower now. Don't let anyone see you as you exit the dungeons." 

Draco looked disappointed as he permitted Snape to shuffle him out the door but didn't protest. Severus returned to his chair and sat for a long while, weighing, before he could retire himself to bed. 

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This chapter's title came from a concept in Robert Jordan's _Wheel of Time_ series: "An Aes Sedai's gift always comes with a hook." Thanks again for keeping with me! Chapter Three might take me a couple weeks, but it's coming. 


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